Constant crying of an evening

[RaisinGirls]

My baby is 5 weeks old and has taken to crying every evening from 4-9, with very little soothing her. I breastfeed her which gives her some comfort but then 10 minutes later she is hysterical. Could this be colic, overtiredness or cluster feeding or the witching hour?

It's so difficult having a baby that constantly cries and not being able to help or understand what's causing the crying.

Watching with interest, as my 5 wo DD has started doing this. She is also breastfed & normally starts kicking off about 8 until she finally falls asleep about 11pm.

Overtiredness is the most likely. It's about that age that they stop just dropping off when tired, and start needing help to get to sleep (eg pram, feeding) - and the more overtired they get the more help they need, it's a vicious circle.

How much does she sleep at night and in the day? She needs about 15-16 hours total at that age. So if she sleeps 10 hrs at night (not in a row (as if!) but in total) then you need her to be getting 5 hours in the day ideally. It may take a lot of pram walking or sling walking to get this to happen but the more sleep she gets the easier it will be to get her to sleep.

Hunger may also be a bit of an issue as supply is lowest at that time - but if feeding doesn't seem to work, or not for long, then I would suspect overtiredness is the main culprit. The two are related, as if she's tired she'll find it hard to feed well, and so may also be hungry. If you fix the tiredness she may be able to feed better.

I second getting into a bedtime routine. DS is 12 weeks and until a few weeks we were 'freestyling' bedtime....which usually resulted in us battling for a couple of hours with lots of tears. So we decided to start the bath, feed, story, bed routine and it's been working very well. It's the one point in the day where he will go down easily (we still struggle with daytime naps but that's another story). It's also meant that DH and I have been eating hot meals at the same time!

Thank you. Will try some of the suggestions, as do think it is tiredness at the root.